Wellington City Council will start drawing water from a disused Karori reservoir from Tuesday afternoon to irrigate its sports fields.
The council has banned pre-season winter training on all grass sports fields because the drought has left the fields rock hard.
Council parks, sport and recreation manager Paul Andrews says the Rural Fire Service is helping to transport the water and a machine used on dairy farms will irrigate the fields.
He says pre-season training may be able to start again as early as next week.
The water is coming from one of two disused dams in the Zealandia sanctuary that used to supply drinking water to the city.
They were decommissioned some years ago.
